


Interlude

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Gen, Having a pet turns you into an idiot and skekTek is no exception., Sidetic - Freeform, Very short and very soft.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25103350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: After the battle and the Gruenaks and Garthim, skekTek tends to Sidetic.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	Interlude

It's quiet now.

The Skeksis are asleep in their beds, wounds cleaned, dinner of whatever they could salvage cold from the kitchen eaten and sitting uneasy in their guts. His Garthim, his most precious and glorious Garthim, are sealed away behind something sturdier than locksnakes. The Podlings are still unaccounted for.

He cleans the blood from Sidetic's face.

Warm water, the mildest soap in the castle; the one that skekLach claims...claimed...for their reddened, inflamed skin, but skekEkt has also been known to employ when washing his most delicate of fabrics. Sidetic utters thin cries of distress at having his face wet at all.

“There, there, now...I know, I know. Believe me, I do know.” Gentlest around the eyestalks. Always gentle. “Such a brave, long suffering creature. That's _my_ Sidetic. My good bird.”

Sleeves rolled high, talons blunted beneath the rag, he dabs over small wings, smaller claws, the thin tail so very like his own. The quills are sharp against his palm, their barbs notorious for the infections they produce, but Sidetic would never stick him intentionally – and the one time he did, it was entirely skekTek's own fault. He should have known better than to reach for him when he was rattling them in warning, too blinded by fear of the thunder to recognize a familiar face.

He knows better now. Always, there are these things to learn.

“There, there we are,” he concludes, giving a final pass to the little cheek. “See? Finished and left to the past.”

Sidetic stares up at him with a look of deep injury, all wet plastered feathers and looking for all the world like an insect wreathed in wet algae.

SkekTek makes amends, gives him a fresh berry to chew on and wraps him up in a blanket. The familiarity of the lab would be preferable, but not in light of what just happened, not reeking with long dead Arathim and freshly dead Gruenak and the singed reek where both melded seamlessy into one. SkekTek lights a fire in one of the pits that long ago warmed the hands of Gelfling dignitaries, but these days is used primarily for roasting crawlies. They sit together, toasting in the warmth.

“There you go. Much more agreeable, yes?”

Sidetic, dried fluffy, chitters with telltale content. SkekTek sighs, and strokes him.

“...I _am_ sorry, you know. You do know that it's the last thing I would ever want, my troubles to fall upon your shoulders...but they have been as of late, haven't they?” He doesn't like to talk or even think about it, the incident with the Emperor which flew so blatantly in the face of every promise he's ever made to Sidetic. “But there is a limit, this I swear to you. If it had gone on, I would have defenstrated him into the pit. Without question. And if you and I had to abscond in the night, take up residence in some wretched Podling mud hut? That's just the way it would have to be.” Sidetic nibbles idly on his talon as it glides close to his face. “Oh yes, yes indeed. Just you and I.”

The fire crackles, soft and thoughtful. SkekTek finds the heat and blood and venom have gone out of him, leaving him curiously drained and unsure of just what it is he's coming down from; the rush of essence or his earlier outpouring.

“But I suspect...this may very well mark a turning point. Not a _miracle_ , mind you. Not the way things were in the beginning, though of course, you weren't around for those. I'm not so guileless as to believe that.” Sidetic preens a tiny hand, nibbling meticulously on even smaller talons. “But...I truly do believe that things are going to be better for us now.”

He closes his good eye for a while...misses, as always, the feeling of closing the lost one, as he makes do with deactivating the visual feed. His consciousness drifts idly, toying with the possibility of sleep, but he's not chancing it with Sidetic out of the relative safety of the lab. 

Though when Sidetic begins to sing, that makes a solid, solid case for it.

It's a sound he would know deaf and on several occasions actually has identified in his sleep; one he would not wholly object to dying to. A high, sweet, cooing melody that has never once failed to comfort him, in no small part because it's synonymous with Sidetic feeling comfortable and at peace. It works its magic now, tension unwinding, all the rage and misery and injustice within him becoming small and inconsequential.

When it ends, he steals a look around to ensure no one's watching from the shadows before returning the favor.

Because this is _their_ ritual.

_You have a beak, I have a beak_

_You have a little beak and I have a big beak_

_But both of us have good beaks._

Admittedly, Sidetic's cooing fairy melody it will never be. For starters, Sidetic's melody doesn't involve tapping each of their beaks in turn.

That's alright. Sidetic has never once minded. For Sidetic, the world as it stands is a warm blanket, a beloved lap, a place where loud, sudden noises aren't.

And skekTek agrees, that will do just fine for now.


End file.
